Beneath the Surface
by Quiet Time
Summary: **Sequel to 'Surface Wounds' "***Grey destroyed half of Cardiff. Jack has him safely frozen. Ianto has something to say about that... And of course I don't own them...or the Hub..etc
1. Chapter 1

**Just a thought from a sleepless night.**

**Set during Exit Wounds.**

Grey's face was peaceful for once. Jack stared at the still face, committing the features to memory. Freezing the image as he'd frozen his brother. Finally he slid the tray closed.

"He killed Tosh." Ianto's voice, behind him. Jack waited for the hand on his shoulder, the arm around his waist. Waited for something that didn't happen. He turned, realizing that maybe this time Ianto needed comfort more than he did. But when he reached for his young lover Ianto moved away, sharply, as if Jack's touch would burn.

Reddened eyes regarded him gravely from a pale face. "He killed Owen," Ianto continued "and we still don't know how many other people out there."

Jack nodded, not sure where he was going with this, but certain he wasn't going to like it.

"And still," Ianto added. "Still, you're doing everything you can to keep him alive."

"He's my brother," Jack said numbly. "He's my brother, and I failed him." This time Ianto allowed the embrace, but it felt stiff, forced, and it was Jack who moved away.

Ianto regarded him across a distance greater than the space between them. "I always hoped one day you'd understand how I felt about Lisa, why I did what I did. I'm sorry it's taken this."

Anger flared in Jack's soul. He knew Ianto had never accepted what he'd had to do, but he thought they'd at least worked past it. Forgiven but not forgotten, to use the old cliché. Bringing it up now was a lower blow than he'd ever believed Ianto capable of.

"That was different," Jack hissed.

"It was," Ianto agreed, too calmly. "You want to know why?"

Jack waited.

"Because _I'm_ not demanding _you_ kill him." Ianto turned away, back ramrod straight, footsteps sharp as gunshots.

"You know why else?" Jack called after him, keeping his own voice level with an effort.

Ianto didn't even pause.

"If _you_ do it, because_ I_ can't," Jack said, forcing the admission past clenched teeth. "I'd forgive you."

**This was intended to be a one-shot, but…anything could happen. Hope you liked.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the response! Since you were kind enough to ask for more, here it is**.

_By the way, the title came out of sleep deprivation. I don't really like it. Any suggestions?_

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Jack paused at the top of the hatch to his bunker. It took all his will to place a foot on the rung. Ridiculous. It was his room. His sanctuary. Just because it was underground didn't change that.

Underground. The foot on the rung trembled. He forced his other to the rung below. He could see his bed. His fingers clenched around the handrails, but he couldn't force his feet lower. Sweat beaded on his forehead. Damn it, he _was not_ going to become a claustrophobic.

Except he probably already was. Two thousand years underground. Waking up to the feel of soil, pressing on his face, trickling inside his mouth as he made those futile attempts to breathe. After a while it seemed his body got the message. Eventually, given the temperature of the soil around him when he woke, he calculated his resurrections happened only at spring thaw. Still too bloody many of them.

A shadow blocked the light coming through the doorway, darkening the office as well. It hadn't occurred to him to put on the office lights, when he was just going to drop into the bunker. It hadn't occurred to him that he wouldn't be _able _to drop into the bunker.

"Are you staying here tonight, Jack?" For once the Welsh vowels failed to send tremors through Jack. Sounded wrong. Not sexy. Not teasing or loving or compassionate. The same tone he'd used in the morgue. Clinical at best. The voice of someone who might, who just _might _have turned off Grey's life support.

He'd practically given him permission, after all.

Not that he'd meant it. And Ianto wouldn't do that.

Would he?

Ianto moved slowly into the room. Turned on the desk lamp.

Jack really hadn't thought things could get worse. But of course they could. They had. He didn't want Ianto to see him like this, frozen to the ladder, sweating, shaking. And it was altogether possible there were tears on his face, too. Shit. And he was _far_ too grateful for the excuse to get off the ladder.

On the other hand, maybe it was time he took a break from being selfish and gave a thought to Ianto, who currently resembled, quite frankly, crap. Well-tailored crap.

Jack looked at the younger man. Really looked at him. Saw the dusty residue on the backs of his hands, the evidence he'd recently removed rubber gloves. The damp patches of the knees of his trousers. The pain in his eyes.

He'd been cleaning the floor of the autopsy bay. Cleaning away Tosh's blood. Mopping up his best friend's deathbed.

Bitter knowledge, that. He was Ianto's lover, but not his best friend. No-one to blame but himself. The distance between them wasn't Ianto's doing, or even his preference. Jack set that particular boundary long ago, after too many losses. So close, no further. And tonight, right now, it was coming back to bite him. Because for the first time Ianto wasn't trying to reach past that boundary. Ianto wasn't turning to him for comfort. Wasn't offering comfort.

But at least he hadn't gone. Yet.

Ianto moved Jack aside, touch gentle but insistent. "It's dark down there," he noted. "Want me to put the light on for you?"

"Thanks," Jack mumbled. Maybe it would help, at that. It didn't help that Ianto obviously knew what his problem was. Captain Jack Harkness was afraid of the dark.

Ianto clambered down the ladder with the ease of familiarity. The bunker glowed as he turned the lamps on. All of them, bringing as much light as possible to the space below. Jack swallowed, with all the difficulty of a parched throat. Should be used to that. The soil had gotten into his throat, those years under Cardiff, dry and gritty and always _there_. Soil and worms and everything between. Sifting between his teeth and sliding down his throat and _crawling_ through his mouth. Coughing it out didn't help, even when he'd been capable of that. Movement only brought more soil raining down.

Jack stilled the fresh burst of shaking and hauled himself back to the present. He should go down now. Ianto was down there. He got to the head of the ladder before his legs locked on him again. Couldn't even get a foot onto the rung, this time.

"It's a bit of a mess," Ianto called. "Haven't used it for a while, have you?"

That stung. Ianto knew precisely how long it had been since Jack used the bunker. In either timeline. They'd been together, after all.

Ianto's head popped back through the manhole. "It'll need some work if you want to stay here tonight." Pause. Weary blue eyes regarded him with what Jack dearly hoped wasn't indifference. "Do you?"

"I didn't get the feeling I'd be welcome at your flat." It sounded like his usual sardonic tone. A minor salve to his pride.

Ianto climbed back out of the bunker. His eyebrow quirk lacked its usual spirit. "That's never stopped you before." Still the dull voice.

It was actually pathetic. This was - damn it Harkness, time to admit it if only to yourself – this was the man he loved. Who he'd thought loved him. Both of them broken by the events of the – well the day for one of them and thousands of years for the other - and neither of them willing to ask for help. Or offer it, come to that. His own fault, again. But for Jack at least, in this one instance the unwillingness wasn't pride. It occurred to him, possibly for the first time, that Ianto didn't actually _want _to help. And he didn't know, really, how he'd get through the night alone.

He couldn't even escape to the roof. John had stolen his last refuge. Sent them to the roofs so Jack would know how very clearly his favorite vantage points showed the destruction of Cardiff.

Did all his lovers turn on him, in the end?

"Before," Jack said carefully, feeling each word float across the distance between them. "I've never actually believed you'd slam the door in my face. This time I'm not sure."

Ianto lowered himself onto the desk, carefully, as though something would break if he moved too quickly.

His eyes shone in the dull light. Jack wondered who those particular tears were for. Lisa? Tosh? Owen? _Grey?_

"I promised you once," Ianto said, more a thought spoken aloud than an actual sentence. "I promised that I'd let you suffer."

They were close enough to touch. Closer than they'd been the time Ianto made that promise. Sometimes Jack thought he could still feel the pain of that punch.

"I could keep that promise tonight, couldn't I?"

**(Is it really a cliffhanger if I'm not sure yet how it's going to end? There's a couple of endings in my head…..not sure which one's going to make it to the page…****..) As always, thanks for reading.**


	3. Chapter 3

**I have a new title! Inspired by a suggestion from Stossle.  
****Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, alerted, favourite-d. I'm humbled by the response.  
****Just a short chapter, but it seemed the right place to stop. More soon.********

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"It'd be easy," Ianto continued conversationally, his eyes focusing on something behind Jack's left shoulder. Something that probably wasn't there. Jack knew better than to look. He wasn't taking his eyes off this stranger wearing his lover's face. "I could just leave, turn the lights off at the mains on my way out. That'd about do it, wouldn't it?"

As if Jack wasn't cold enough. He could almost feel it already, the darkness pressing against him as he stumbled through the Hub. Ianto wouldn't do that to him. He was grieving and angry but he _wouldn't_ do anything that cruel. Not Ianto. Not _his_ Ianto, anyway.

Jack looked into eyes like the heart of a glacier, seeing the shattering within that he should have seen long ago. Searching for traces of the man he knew. The man he loved.

"I suppose it depends on whether _I'm_ a monster, doesn't it, Jack?"

Had he collected every word from that night and stored it away? Jack wondered. And all these months, all the affection, the support, what he'd even dared to believe was love – was it all a set up? All revenge for killing Lisa? No, that wasn't Lisa, the thing he'd killed. Just a monster wearing her body. He'd told Ianto that, over and over.

He'd thought Ianto had believed him. Maybe he didn't. Obviously, he didn't.

"You aren't a monster, Ianto," Jack said hoarsely. Something that felt like the right words swam into his consciousness, the words he should have said, back then. Words that weren't filtered through his own pride.

"Nor was she," Jack admitted. "She was a victim."

"Like Grey was?" Ianto asked, a tiny note of interest creeping into his voice.

Jack's mind retreated from the _was._ He wondered if he'd ever ask Ianto whether he'd turned off Grey's life support. Wondered whether Ianto would ever tell him. Knew that he'd never check himself.

Because in spite of his brave words, he knew he'd never forgive Ianto for it. And turning off the life support on someone already cryo-frozen - that was an easy death. Especially compared to being savaged by a pterodactyl then shot by what amounted to a firing squad.

Jack believed it was justified, back then. He'd been afraid. Desperate. But just because it was the_ only_ solution, didn't mean it was the _best _one. He should have admitted that, to Ianto at least.

"They were both victims," Jack agreed. The words were razor blades, cutting into his conscience. He hadn't treated Lisa like a victim.

A parade of others marched through his mind. Carys. Beth. Tommy, even. At the mercy of something they couldn't control. He'd thought he couldn't afford to show them any compassion.

He hadn't shown Ianto much compassion either. He'd been _jealous_.

Ianto watched him from the desk. Not staring, not an eye battle. Just watching. The ice in his eyes melting into tears. Evaluating. Blinking, very, very slowly. Shutters rising and dropping over his eyes.

Jack saw something in his face collapse, the tense muscles dissolving, the stranger taking a step back.

Reaching across the space between them felt like reaching into a furnace. And the tears on his neck felt too hot to have come from those icy eyes.

Maybe it was too early to feel relief, but it was a start.

**A little bit of healing. But this is never going to be warm and fuzzy.**


	4. Chapter 4

**The response to this fic continues to amaze me. Thank you so much. I hope I continue to do justice to your expectations.**

Ianto moved out of the embrace, rubbing his eyes with his fists, as a tired child does. He drew the fists away and looked at them with curiosity, as if he couldn't work out why they were wet. Spread the hands out, held them up before his eyes. Examining, again like a child, when they first discover that those things at the end of their arms actually belong to them. The hands dropped slowly to his lap, flinching away from the damp patches on his knees.

Too-bright eyes rose to meet Jack's gaze for perhaps the first time that night, flicking away as if the contact hurt.

"You've got dirt in your hair," Ianto said softly. Neutral tone. If not for what had gone before, Jack would have been grateful for it. He hated sympathy. Hated feeling weak.

Ianto leaned forward and ran a single finger through Jack's hair. Jack fought the urge to shrink away from the touch. The finger came away dulled by a patina of dust. "See? Just near the scalp."

Jack shuddered. He'd cleaned up before Torchwood froze him. The soil must have gotten into his pores, for God's sake. Where else, he wondered? Was it in his lungs, his gut? Felt that way.

Jack summoned the shreds of his dignity. "I was buried," he said coolly. "Without even the dubious comfort of a coffin, I might add. There was dirt." He tried to suppress the tremor than ran through him, but he couldn't. Tried to pretend it was a shrug. "So I got dirty."

Ianto's hand dropped to Jack's jaw-line, his thumb tracing the bone beneath, collecting the beads of sweat. The lack of warmth in his eyes made a mockery of what should have been a caress. But Jack couldn't move away from him, any more than he could climb down that ladder. Because it was just possible Ianto _was _trying to help, however little it felt like that. If Ianto was reaching through whatever was holding him frozen, and Jack pulled away from him now…then he'd leave.

This was why love was a mistake. When you love someone, you aren't enough for yourself anymore. Shouldn't have let it happen. Too late now.

Because Jack didn't want Ianto to leave. Couldn't bear it if he left. Couldn't tell him that, though. He might leave anyway. And that would just add rejection to humiliation. Quite a list.

Was this, Jack wondered, how he'd made Ianto feel? In the early days, in the bunker, just like this but so different, when the sweat on his body wasn't from fear. When _he'd_ left, with the excuse that he didn't need to sleep, and there was no point staying just to watch Ianto sleep, was there? And it _was_ just an excuse, because sometimes he hadn't even waited until Ianto was asleep. Trying to escape from something that threatened to become too strong. But if he'd made Ianto feel this way, Jack acknowledged now that deserved whatever happened tonight. And he hoped it wasn't too late to fix it.

Ianto drew his hand back for further examination, then rubbed the thumb and forefinger together, merging the dust and sweat. His nose wrinkled fastidiously at the resulting smear of mud, and he wiped his fingers carefully on his trousers. "I'll never wear them again, anyway," he murmured.

It occurred to Jack that maybe those damp patches on the knees of Ianto's trousers weren't water. He'd been scrubbing the floors. There was blood on the floors. Tosh's blood.

It occurred to Jack that he should have offered to clean the autopsy bay himself. He'd been here, staring at his bunker, when he could have been _there_. Been there for Ianto.

It occurred to Jack that he was a selfish prick.

Tears gathered in his eyes again. Not for himself, this time, but maybe it was too late to matter. Maybe it was too late to ask for forgiveness. From Ianto. From Grey. Or from Tosh. Or Owen. Or Suzie. Or….so many. Too many. Too late.

Except that Ianto was still here. If he could just get the words out. But they wouldn't form in his mind, let alone on his tongue. If he asked for forgiveness, he had to admit he'd been wrong. That he _was_ wrong.

The Doctor told him that. The Doctor was always right. Wasn't he?

Silence stretched between them. A strangely timeless silence. It might have been seconds since they'd last spoken, or it might have been hours. Or days. No way of telling in the Hub.

Ianto looked at the ladder, looked curiously back at Jack. Moving only his head, with sharp little jerks that reminded Jack of Myfanwy, except so much more fragile.

"You're afraid to go down there," Ianto said, tilting his head to the side.

Jack swallowed against the lump in his throat that _couldn't _be a clod of soil. Did Ianto _still_ believe Jack didn't feel fear? Had he really kept himself hidden that well?

Given how much trouble he was having answering the question, probably. Definitely.

"Aren't you?" Ianto prompted.

Jack nodded, as much against his will as if someone had their hand behind his head, forcing it forwards.

"Jack?"

"_YES."_

"The first step in dealing with a phobia is to admit it," Ianto announced clinically. He pushed himself stiffly away from the desk and stopped close enough that Jack could feel warm breath fanning his cheek.

"You can't stay here then," Ianto said briskly. "Meet me at the lift." He moved back towards the bunker.

Jack gaped at his retreating back. Ianto climbed down the ladder, pausing just before his head disappeared into the space beneath.

"I have to turn the lights off," Ianto told him, in the voice of a parent explaining why ice cream wasn't lunch food. Exaggerated patience. Explaining the obvious.

The lights in the bunker flickered off in quick succession, plunging the space below into darkness. Jack fought the urge to move into the pool of light cast by the desk lamp and watched the ladder until Ianto's head emerged again.

"Are you still here?" Ianto asked, impatience in every line of his body as he climbed the rest of the way out. He paused at the desk, his hand on the lamp switch, looking at Jack with all the compassion of Owen during a dissection. Owen. Twice dead. More than dead. No need to clean up after Owen. He wouldn't even need a space in the morgue.

"You don't want me to do this while you're still here," Ianto said, a glimmer of warmth sneaking into his tone. "The lift has its own lighting. Go on, Jack."

Jack turned for the door, and froze again. This was all wrong. He didn't follow orders from Ianto.

"Unless," Ianto paused, sounding uncertain, beginning to babble. "Unless, of course, you want to be alone. Do you? I could just leave the lights on and go. Is that what you want?"

Something gave Jack a mental slap. Possibly a wiser version of himself. "No," he answered, just a shade too quickly for his own dignity. "No, Ianto, that's not what I want."

Ianto sighed. "What _do_ you want, Jack?"

He's not giving me orders, Jack told himself firmly. He's giving me what I need. Giving, like he always does. Have I ever given anything back?

"I want," he paused, carefully erasing any note of pleading from his tone. "I want to come home with you."

There was movement at corners of Ianto's mouth, a twitch that might have grown into a smile but had forgotten how. "Meet me at the lift," he repeated.

This time Jack went.

**Poor broken boys. I am being mean to them. Not as mean as RTD, though. And at least I intend to glue them back together at the end. Might be some pieces missing though.**


	5. Chapter 5

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**Thank you to everyone who is still reading. Special thanks to those who have taken the time to review.**

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The invisible lift delivered them to the Plass. The Plass had become a field hospital. And a tent city. And yes, a soup kitchen, too. The heart of Cardiff, gathering in the homeless and the hurt and the hungry.

The defenders of Cardiff huddled on the lift. They'd given all they had. More than they could afford. And it wasn't enough.

"We'll have to walk," Ianto said tiredly.

"Bound to be road blocks," Jack agreed.

The streets of Cardiff were a battle zone. Police. Military. The occasional red beret of Unit. No one had told them the battle was over. And they'd lost.

Sirens shattered the silence. Flashing lights splintered the darkness.

"I did this," Jack breathed, a whisper between the sirens. "My fault."

"Not your fault." Ianto had said that before, countless times. But Jack could count the number of times it lacked conviction. Once. Tonight. Now.

A child's cry cut through the sirens. Three children, huddled in a doorway, clinging to exhausted parents.

They helped them back to the Plass. The mother smiled as Jack made her children laugh. "Who did this?" she asked.

"Terrorists," Ianto told her. "It was terrorists."

"It was my fault," Jack said, two streets later. "He was my ex."

He could see Ianto's head shake.

"John planted the bombs," Jack insisted.

Ianto drew his gun and ran. Jack stared numbly after him until he heard the shooting. Then his Webley leapt into his hand and adrenaline coursed through his veins. For the next five minutes they were themselves again. Lovers and colleagues and friends.

They restrained the looters until the military arrived, drawn by the gunshots.

"He said you fired at them," the senior officer accused.

"Warning shots over their heads," Ianto said, his voice dulling as the adrenaline retreated.

The soldier scoffed.

"If he'd been aiming for them, they'd be bleeding," Jack informed him, summoning the cheerful voice that always frustrated authority.

"Who the hell are you, anyway?"

Their IDs appeared in unison, in a move they'd practiced, just for the fun of it.

"Bloody Torchwood," the soldier muttered to his mates. "It's all down to bloody Torchwood."

Jack detached Ianto's fist from the soldier's shirt. "Two of our team died shutting down the nuclear reactor," he said, in a voice of black velvet.

"It's only because of them you've got anything of Cardiff to put back together," Ianto added, bitter enough to burn.

They left without further argument.

They kept walking. Still only half way home. Half way through a fifteen minute walk that had already taken thirty.

"He thought we did it," Ianto mumbled. "Maybe we did." He sounded utterly defeated. Broken.

Jack couldn't stand it.

"Grey did it," Jack said, the words tearing his dry throat. "Because of me. Because I failed him."

Ianto's hand brushed against his. Jack reached for it, but it slipped away.

"There's blood on my hands," Ianto muttered. "Tosh…Tosh's blood." Fresh tears trickled from his eyes, glistening like diamonds against the pale skin.

"You were wearing gloves," Jack protested. As if that would help.

"I can still feel it."

They walked on in silence, wrapped in thoughts of blood and soil. Jack froze. The block ahead was dark. A dark and silent tunnel. Someone had smashed the streetlamps.

Ianto walked on until he realized Jack wasn't following. Looked back over his shoulder enquiringly. "We're nearly there. Two more blocks."

The darkness flowed around him with the breeze, brushing his skin with grains of dust lifted from the broken streets. Dust. Soil. Darkness. His throat closed again, blocked by that phantom lump of soil.

Ianto's hand closed around his and tugged. The lump dissolved. Jack closed his eyes against the darkness and followed.

"I failed _her_, too," Ianto said. The deserted street echoed its agreement. _Failed her._

Birds took flight, squawking their annoyance at the disruption. Such a normal sound.

They turned a corner. Ianto squeezed Jack's hand. "We've got lights again."

"You did everything you could," Jack answered, opening his eyes. He loosened his grip on Ianto's hand, but he didn't let go. This time he was going to hang on tight.

"Not then," Ianto persisted. "At Canary Wharf."

Even the distant wail of sirens sounded expectant.

"The Ghost hour. Everyone had a ghost. My Tad came for me. I started hiding in the secure archives. He couldn't find me there."

Now wasn't the time to ask why he didn't want to catch up with the master tailor.

"I was there that day," Ianto continued. "Hiding from him I heard the screaming. Heard their footsteps. But I stayed there. I should have found Lisa, taken her back with me."

Ianto's fingernails dug into Jack's palm. He returned the grip.

"If you'd gone back for her, they'd have taken you too," Jack said firmly. "You'd have been converted."

"And if you'd chased after Grey," Ianto countered, "They'd have caught you too. Those…things."

There was a thin line between cowardice and accepting the inevitable. Maybe they'd both crossed it.

They'd finally reached Ianto's building. Home was two floors above. Ianto looked back at the devastation mercifully cloaked by the darkness.

"He killed Cardiff," Ianto said. "He killed our friends."

Jack nodded. "I know."

"You want to know if I killed _him,_ don't you, Jack?"

"I do," Jack answered. His heart hammered. "But don't tell me."

Ianto pulled his hand free and pressed the call button for the lift.

"_I'd_ never kill anyone _you _loved, Jack." His gazed flickered to anywhere that wasn't Jack's face. "You'd probably consider that a weakness, but there it is."

Would have been much more impressive if his voice wasn't shaking.

Something snapped. Something crumbled. Jack grabbed Ianto by the shoulders, pulled him around so they were face to face. Memories of _that_ night tore free and engulfed them both.

Sometimes love and hate become so close you can't tell them apart.

"She was Lisa anymore," Jack yelled. "She wasn't the woman you knew. She wasn't the woman you loved."

"And do you really think?" Ianto asked, his voice too composed for sanity. "That the man who did _that_ was still the little boy you lost?"

The lift door opened. Jack released his grip on Ianto's shoulders and tried to step inside. His foot froze partway in. Rage at his own weakness pulsed through him with every heartbeat.

The lift was a cold, grey, metal box. Like the drawer in the morgue. He'd banged his head on the top of the drawer when he'd woken up, and he'd been relieved, just for an instant. Just because it wasn't soil anymore. But it was still cold. Unyielding. And there was no light. No room to move. The drawer was cold. He was cold. There was air but he still couldn't breathe. It took every scrap of self-control to deliver those measured bangs on the door, to stop them from deteriorating into panicked thumping.

Jack drew on the pulsing rage and channeled it into getting just _one bloody foot_ inside the lift.

The lift doors began to close. The sensors shrilled their complaint at the obstruction.

Ianto's hand landed on his shoulder. "We can take the stairs, Jack."

The rage changed direction and pressed against his eyes. "I can do this."

The hand slid down his arm, seized his hand again. "You can. But not now."

Jack pulled his foot back. His shoulders slumped. He _wasn't_ going to cry. He'd get over this. He would.

Ianto sighed. "It's only two flights."

Only two flights. And they were well lit. Easy. Easier if they weren't both exhausted. Adrenaline was a faint memory somewhere in their veins.

Ianto's flat felt like home. They collapsed onto the couch, shoulders touching. Jack reflected that he really should have showered first. Ianto wouldn't want soil on his furniture.

Would the soil ever wash away? Worth a try, he supposed.

"Mind if I use your shower?"

Ianto waved an arm in a vague gesture that could have meant anything.

Jack rose, paused. "Join me?"

"Oh for God's sake, Jack." Ianto's face dropped into his hands.

"Not for that," Jack said awkwardly.

"That's a first." Ianto's voice was muffled by the hands. Didn't sound like him. Hadn't sounded like him all night.

Jack peeled the hands away, gently, as if they might snap. Watched Ianto stare at his own hands in distaste.

"I just thought," Jack explained, not bothering this time to keep the pleading out of his tone. "That if you washed the soil away, I might believe it's gone."

Their eyes locked. Blue on blue. No ice anymore. Just tears. Just pain.

"Do you think," Ianto asked, "That you could get the blood off my hands?"

Jack cradled his lover's hands in his, brought them to his lips. "I'll do my best."

**It was never going to be a happy ending, but perhaps a hopeful one?**

**Hope you enjoyed it.**


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